Friday, October 22, 2010

I don't have a link for you, but I thought I'd mention that the West Memphis newspaper continues hard on the trail of the Democratic candidate for state representative District 54, Fred Smith, putatively from Crawfordsville. The nub of the reporting is that nobody seems to be able to locate the elusive Mr. Smith, a former Harlem Globetrotter, including the state Ethics Commission, which would like to ask him about failure to file required financial disclosure forms. Evidence that he actually lives in Crawfordsville is scant. More compelling evidence has been compiled suggesting he lives in Mississippi.

Perhaps after he's elected (he has no opposition except a write-in) somebody can serve papers on him at the state House of Representatives chamber. Presumably he'll fill out the necessary paperwork to get a paycheck and per diem. Candidates he defeated in the primary have asked the state Democratic Party to investigate and there's talk of a legal challenge. But, so far, the former 'Trotter's hidden ball trick seems to be working.

An Arkansas anti-abortion law is a phony. It's about ending abortion, not protecting women and a New York Times writer says it could present an important case for the U.S. Supreme Court.

The Arkansas Supreme Court continues to grapple, with divisions, on how to square new federal and state law on resentencing people who got life without parole sentences for capital crimes committed when they were minors.

UAMS, pressed by financial problems for several years, told the University of Arkansas Board of Trustees today that it had a $1.5 billion operating budget that doesn't call for deficit spending.

Arkansas Court of Appeals Judge Bart Virden of Morrilton, who narrowly survived attack ads by an outside partisan group supporting his opponent for re-election to a nonpartisan seat, doesn't intend to let the matter drop.

Do what Donald Trump says or leave the country. Is that the embodiment of the 1st Amendment or what?

The Arkansas Supreme Court got Attorney General Leslie Rutledge's attention at last today with its order that she comply with the law and either certify proposed ballot initiatives or propose language more acceptable to her.

Enjoy these photos from today's dedication and re-installation of a new Ten Commandments monument. The first iteration of the monument was installed last June but destroyed within the next 24 hours when it was rammed by a man in a Dodge Dart.